02 - 6/12/25 : Ut Supra, Sic Infra

 

"C'mon, a mongrel like me, a living legend? A walking folktale, maybe. I just need to make sure I don't turn into a running joke."  

Lann of Neathholm

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  As the party's collective vision faded, they were overtaken by a vision of the past, of the terrible tragedy that had fallen Kenabres.  

As you lay eyes on the gleaming silver scale before you, your vision blurs and your mind thrashes against the bounds of your skull. Your heart, thumping at an unnerving pace feels as though it might break free of your chest at the slightest provocation. Your vision flashes to Clydwell Plaza. Satomi, you see the vapid faces of onlookers witnessing your art at Vergil's behest. Hilda, you see the prelate on the far opposite of the plaza, looking over his shoulder with narrowed eyes in your direction. Alanis, you see the dwarf brothers, Staunton and Joran, arguing over some petty squabble.   Elseth, you watch as your daughter struggles to form the words of a confession. She looks up at you as if her heart bears a great burden. "Mother, I have something to tell you. I…"   But things do not fade to darkness this time; instead, all gives way to a sudden cacophony of explosions and flame. In the distance, the fortified tower known as the Kite, house of the great wardstone that brings divine protection to Kenabres, erupts into a spire of blinding flame. The sky darkens, the ground shakes, and a great roar echoes from the southern wall.   From the alleyways bursts a towering demonic horror; a bipedal monstrosity bearing wings of shadow and eyes of burning flame. In its hands it bears a blazing whip of fire, and a blade made of solid lightning. As the balor steps into the plaza, crushing peasants beneath his feet without so much as a moment of effort, the screams of the festival attendees confirms the worst; "Khorramzadeh! The Storm King returns to Kenabres!"   It is with unchecked, unearned bravery that young Erodel Zanec descends from the central platform, drawing his blade to charge at the monster before him to protect his beloved. It takes Khorramzadeh a mere flick of the wrist to bring about a snap of his flame whip, and soon Erodel lies in two pieces upon the plaza, his once-handsome, now smoldering face twisted into an expression of horror.   The beast pauses for a moment as its foul demonic minions pour into the square, some stumbling from the shadows, others appearing out of thin air through abyssal teleportation. The Storm King's horrific maw exhales sulfurous vapors as he sets his eyes on the central tent, where a young woman in a wedding dress stands in mortal fear.   Khorramzadeh's crackling blade falls swiftly, but does not make its mark, as the beast is toppled by a shining silver dragon. Terendelev, guardian of Kenabres, pounces upon her hated enemy in her true draconic form, biting and tearing at the balor as the crusader guards bring the fight to the swarming demons encroaching on the area.   The dragon is shaken off as Khorramzadeh forces himself to his feet. A sharp CRACK echoes through the burning streets as his whip leaves a smoldering burn on the dragon's scaled hide. Yet Terendelev holds fast, and opens her jaw to deliver a torrent of freezing cold dragonbreath. Khorramzadeh stumbles in the face of this power, despite even his inherent demonic resistance to cold, and his foe takes advantage by pinning him to the ground with her talons.   "You have failed again, so called Storm King. The passage of two decades has done little to sharpen your blade. You will know this, and so too will your pitiful underlings; so long as I stand, Kenabres shall not fall to your blade!"   Khorramzadeh emits something between a defiant roar and an amused chuckle as Terendelev bites down upon his jugular. The balor, furious even in its death throes, explodes into a bloom of flame, which is only contained by Terendelev buckling down and shielding her surroundings with her wings. After she is certain that Khorramzadeh has been condemned to regenerate in the Abyss, Terendelev turns back to the battle at hand. "Fear not, brave defenders of Kenabres! We will turn back these minions of the Lord of Locusts, and -"   Her rally is cut off by the sound of buzzing. The burning sky is shadowed by a dreadful figure; a gigantic mantis that descends upon the plaza holding a bone-scythe the size of a sailing galleon. The air grows thick with winged terrors as Deskari, demon lord of locusts, the Usher of the Apocalypse, touches down in Kenabres.   "​Muir , bloodless bitch of the heavens, my hated foe. See now as I scatter your champions before my boundless hate! Watch as they become food for the swarm!"   Terendelev launches herself at Deskari, clamping down on his chitinous shoulder with her powerful jaw. Yet the lord of Locusts does not even lurch at this affront, instead grasping Terendelev by the throat and throwing her to the far side of the plaza, tearing off a slab of his hideous body with her.   The dragon collides with once proud buildings and once sturdy homes, reducing them to rubble beneath her feet. Deskari coldly and calmly approaches, his scythe held high to rend the guardian of Kenabres to shreds. Terendelev rouses for a moment and spews another blast of bitter cold at her enemy, yet this one does not buckle or relent at the assault. Deskari roars angrily and plunges his scythe downwards, scarring even the very air itself as it descends. Terendelev's head is cleanly severed from her neck in a single swing, spraying blood by the gallon across the square; yet she is not the only victim of the demon lord's attack.   As the blow connects and drives into the grounds of Clydwell Plaza, the ground is rent asunder, torn apart at lengths far greater than even Deskari's enormous scythe. A gigantic rift cracks open in the center of the plaza, opening a deep descent into the darkness below. Each of you find yourself losing your balance, trying desperately to seek safety or the safety of others as the demon lord rampages about, but the shock of the quake is too much to steady yourself against. As you fall over the precipice, you catch a glimpse of magic erupt from the central stage, accompanied by a shout.   "Mother, NO!" Alita screams, summoning her arcane power in a desperate attempt to save the only family she has left. From her hands erupts a gout of magical power, unexpected from a mage of her youth and experience, and forth drives a burst of searing golden light that engulfs the four of you as you fall into the depths.   As you plummet, you feel your mind screaming in pain, overwhelmed by magic so deeply infused with desperation and despair. Your chest overflows with barely contained energy, threatening to tear apart muscle and bone alike to escape. The agony quickly overtakes your senses.   As the feather fall spell takes effect and your descent slows, your consciousness fades. You watch more figures tumble into the darkness from the light above, not as fortunate as the lot of you to receive such aid. You watch the edges of the rift fall in upon each other, the earth collapsing to close off the ravine that Deskari carved into it.   You hear the sounds of Alita screaming, until darkness overtakes you.

  And then the vision passed, leaving them bewildered and with far more questions than answers. How were the demons able to damage the wardstone? How were they able to breach the great wardstone barrier in the first place? Did they have aid from the inside, and just how deeply did such corruption seep into Kenabres' leadership? And most pressing; why did only the quartet of Satomi, Elseth, Alanis, and Hilda become afflicted with temporary amnesia, if Alita's feather fall had spared them from any physical injury?   Once the four had collected themselves, they rose from their temporary stupor and prepared to explore further. However, as Anevia attempted to follow, she stopped in her tracks as she examined the building before them. As she realized along with the rest of the party that the structure was an abandoned temple of the dwarven god ​Moradin, Anevia was struck by a sudden melancholy, as the place of faith reminded her of her wife Irabeth, a devout paladin of Muir whose fate was still unknown. Just then, a surge of pain shot through her broken leg, and she asked for a momentary respite. The survivors agreed to stop for a moment to let Anevia recover.   As Anevia settled in, Horgus began to lose his patience and stated that he'd prefer if they left Anevia behind, sparking an argument between the two. Anevia chastised Horgus for being a heartless and godless coward, while Horgus chided her for always spying around his estate on suspicions that he was a cultist. Before the situation could get too heated, however, Satomi stepped in and defused the argument, convincing both of them to prioritize their survival.   While Anevia rested, Elseth and Alanis decided to investigate the abandoned temple. Inside they found the corpse of a dwarven priest, as well as a finely made dwarven hammer. Alanis seemed particularly intrigued by the dwarven cadaver, but her investigation of the corpse was interrupted when it began to move, rising from the stone pew to attack with wicked claws.   Elseth and Alanis quickly realized that the undead monster was a heucuva; the remains of a priest who had a terrible crisis of faith before perishing. The heucuva radiated an aura of faithlessness, which dampened the abilities of divine spellcasters in its presence, and made the religious members of the survivors feel ill. The situation was worsened when the heucuva was joined by a group of zombies, whom seemed to have been stirred by the other monster's grim revival.   Satomi and Elseth worked together to halt the zombies at the entrance of the temple, while Alanis, Hilda, and Haliel focused their efforts on the heucuva. The undead priest fought ferociously, seriously wounding Haliel and Alanis and infecting the two of them with filth fever, but it was eventually brought low by Haliel's persistent hammer swings. Hilda joined Elseth and Satomi and incinerated several zombies with her powerful fire bolts, while Satomi cut down the remainders with her battle-fan whilst under Elseth's holy protection.   Once the area was clear, the survivors took a moment to rest, having been pushed hard by their recent encounters. Once they were ready, the survivors pressed on; after a lengthy stretch of empty tunnels (long enough for Alanis and Haliel to recover from their illness), they encountered firelight - a sign of something else sentient in the underground. Anticipating the mongrels of folklore, the party instead encountered a dwarven wizard named Millorn who had gone quite mad.   Elseth tried to placate Millorn into allowing the group to pass, but her words caused the insane dwarf to snap and attack the party with his magic. Although he was able to badly harm Elseth with his magic missiles, the proved easily capable of overwhelming the dwarf, and slew him in short order. Rummaging among the possessions of her fallen fellow wizard, Hilda found a badly chewed-on spellbook with spells written in difficult-to-parse arcane shorthand within, as well as a cloak of minor resistance and a few potions.   Proceeding further into the tunnels, the party once again came across firelight in the distance. This time, their curiosity was rewarded, as the firelit cavern contained not one, not two, but three beings that clearly matched the folkloric descriptions of the mongrels.   Two of the mongrels were trying to help the third of their number out of a pile of rocks that had fallen due to Dearie's rampage. When they detected the party, they reacted with wariness and drew their weapons, but the party was able to convince the two that they meant no harm, as they luckily spoke common just as the surfacers did.   One mongrel, a man whose body was split into one half resembling a satyr and another half resembling a green lizard, introduced himself as Lann. His companion, a blue-skinned woman sporting catlike eyes and eight spider legs sprouting from her back, gave her name as well; Wenduag. As a showing of good will, the survivors offered to assist Lann and Wenduag in saving their friend Crel from suffocating under the rocks. After a bit of work, Crel was dug out, saving his life.   Lann and Wenduag confirmed that the mongrels - or 'neathers', as Wenduag preferred - of the underground had felt the earthquakes from above as well, but were shocked to learn that the disturbances were caused by Deskari himself. They also proceeded to speak the truth about the mongrels that had so long been the subject of tall tales; they were descendants of the warriors of the First Crusade over a century ago. Unlike modern crusaders, those who fought in the First Crusade did not take sufficient precautions against the Worldwound's abyssal corruption, and this corruption caused their children to be born with strange and varied deformities. Cursed with short lifespans and mutations that carried through to successive generations, the mongrels retreated to the underground to escape persecution, but still proudly branded themselves as the Children of the First Crusade.   Both mongrels seemed to entertain the idea of their people joining the crusaders above, but favored different approaches to doing so. They did not entertain this argument for long, however - once asked if they knew a way out of the underground, Lann stated that many of the usual passages to the surface had likely collapsed, save for the one through a structure known as the Shield Maze. However, the Shield Maze was known to be deadly; no neathers had ever returned from attempting to explore it. Still, it remained the surfacers' best option to return to the ruins of Kenabres.   Lann & Wenduag decided to take the survivors to their village of Neathholm, where they could rest before attempting to breach the Shield Maze. A short trek brought them to a squalid underground settlement, where they were greeted with awe and surprise by the other mongrels.   The survivors were led to Seer Opoli, the resident healer of Neathholm who used her magic to see to their wounds. As the party settled into Neathholm, they began to talk about the attack they had witnessed. Hilda revealed that she had a 'feeling' prior to the attack back on the surface - when asked about this, Hilda stated that with so many people gathered in one place, it was inevitable that the demons would pounce upon such a chance to cause pandemonium. The others were skeptical, however, as Armasse had been celebrated yearly without incident for decades.   Lann and Wenduag brought up their ideas for the Mongrels' participation in the fight against the demons once again. Lann favored enlisting the mongrels properly with the crusaders above, assimilating into their armies; Wenduag doubted the tolerance of the uplanders, however, and preferred that the neathers participate as an elusive guerilla force, remaining distant from their uplander cousins that might persecute them for the abyssal taint in their bodies.   With this conflict in mind, the survivors prepared to speak to the Chief of the tribe, Sull, at the behest of Lann and Wenduag. Sull would be able to facilitate their passage to the Shield Maze, as well as officially grant them shelter for the night. The party approached the old and deformed chief, while Lann and Wenduag waited with bated breath…